Long Now Foundation | How hard should the Turing test be?

July 29, 2014

Within the world of Long Now’s Long Bets, $20,000 is on the line. Mitch Kapor predicted in 02002 that “By 2029 no computer — or machine intelligence — will have passed the Turing test.”

Ray Kurzweil, who popularized the Turing test in his books, countered that reverse-engineering of the human brain will allow computer programs that can think like a human, and that research is accelerating.

The Turing test passed by Eugene Goostman in not the same Turing test proposed by Kapor and Kurzweil. Kurzweil found Eugene Goostman to be lacking, posting a transcript.

Kurzweil has not conceded the bet and expects a long period of dubious claims that computers have passed Turing’s test. Eugene Goostman may not indicate human-level intelligence to Kurzweil or many others. [...]

Comments (1)

“His bet with Mitch Kapor [that an AI will pass the Turing Test by 2029] stipulates that interviews will last 2 hours”

Wow, that’s a lengthy test! I didn’t know it was going to be that long. It will be tough for the AI to pass such an extended scrutiny. Kurzweil and Kapor have set a high bar for themselves! It will be interesting to see what happens.